


i’ve got oceans in my head & waves that won’t rest

by notbang



Category: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV)
Genre: Aquariums, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Rebecca is not technically present but very heavily discussed, Recreational Drug Use, Reluctant Bonding, sometimes people trespass to Cope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 14:10:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15753306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notbang/pseuds/notbang
Summary: It should be absurd, the two of them—he, a Stanford educated attorney and Heather, a… well, he’s not entirely sure what Heather is because he’s seen her at Home Base, obviously, and the term student gets bandied about a lot but it occurs to him he has no idea what she’s supposedly been studying—huddled together in a toilet stall of questionable hygiene levels, precariously balanced with their feet on the lid and their backs and flung-out arms pressed up against the walls, holding them up and away from the dirty tile. He should be delivering a flat-out no, straightening his collar and leaving with an indignant huff. He doesn’t, though, and he can’t explain it—something about Heather makes him feel like there’s no room for argument. Like she’s some all-powerful, all-seeing deity that’s prescribed defying toilet cubicle gravity as the answer to all his problems and he’s helpless to go along with it.Or: Heather and Nathaniel miss Rebecca, so they sort of wind up getting high and looking at fish.





	i’ve got oceans in my head & waves that won’t rest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cori_the_bloody](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cori_the_bloody/gifts).



> Written for the prompt _Nathaniel & Heather - a different kind of therapy_ and a follow up to [this post.](http://notbang.tumblr.com/post/176837824301/heather-nathaniel-breaking-the-law)

It turns out they don’t have to break into the aquarium after all—it’s open until late for a few weeks in the tail end of the summer.

“Will you be paying together, or separately this evening?”

“Oh, he’s paying,” Heather tells the lady at the counter, then looks expectantly at Nathaniel. “What? You’re the one that needed to pour all your unmanly feelings out to the marine life. I’m just along for the ride, so I am _not_ footing the therapy bill. Anyway, we both know you can afford it.”

Nathaniel swipes his credit card.

“You kids have a nice date,” the lady tells him as she hands over the tickets.

He opens his mouth to correct her but Heather’s already slung a loose arm around him and leant into his shoulder. It catches him off guard and he tenses, freezes, stops in the middle of putting his card back in his wallet.

“Gross. He’s my brother,” Heather deadpans, then drags him away as the lady starts to stutter.

*

Heather won’t let him enter any of the exhibits yet.

“The aquarium is still open for another twenty seven minutes,” she says, like that explains everything.

To kill time they trudge around the gift shop. Nathaniel’s never been one for mindless knick-knacks, and he peruses the aisles aimlessly, hands stuffed deep into his pockets. Something ends up catching his eye, though—a salmon-pink plush toy of an otter, posed on its back with its tiny, fluffy front paws extended upwards and grasping a heart-shaped clamshell. It’s kind of cute, he thinks absently before he can stop himself. He likes the otters, even though they’re not particularly active around the time he tends to visit, aquarium or zoo. He’s just about to pick the toy up for closer inspection when Heather pops up next to him, startling him, and he drops his hand away like he’s been burned.

“Quit looking so guilty,” she says, pressing deliberately onto the toe of his shoe with her boot before hooking her finger into one of his belt loops to pull him out of the store just as the fifteen minutes until closing announcement crackles over the PA.

She tugs him towards the ladies room but redirects to the mens when his face contorts in abject horror. “Ugh, don’t be such a baby,” she groans, then shoves him into a cubicle.

“What exactly are we doing?”

“Hiding, duh,” she says with a pained sigh, as if it’s obvious. She slaps his hand away from the handle. “Don’t lock it; the idea is to look _un_ occupied, you moron. When you hear the night guard coming, leave this slightly ajar and stand on the seat. If we get caught over your overpriced, spit-shone Oxfords peeking out under the door I will literally murder you.”

It should be absurd, the two of them—he, a Stanford educated attorney and Heather, a… well, he’s not entirely sure what Heather is because he’s seen her at Home Base, obviously, and the term _student_ gets bandied about a lot but it occurs to him he has no idea what she’s supposedly been studying—huddled together in a toilet stall of questionable hygiene levels, precariously balanced with their feet on the lid and their backs and flung-out arms pressed up against the walls, holding them up and away from the dirty tile. He should be delivering a flat-out no, straightening his collar and leaving with an indignant huff. He doesn’t, though, and he can’t explain it—something about Heather makes him feel like there’s no room for argument. Like she’s some all-powerful, all-seeing deity that’s prescribed defying toilet cubicle gravity as the answer to all his problems and he’s helpless to go along with it.

“You’ve done this before,” he notes, wincing as he tries to ease the stiffness taking hold in his back without slipping any further down the wall.

“Not here specifically, but at, like, places? Sure. But so have you, right? That’s why we’re here.”

“Yeah, but my way usually involves just walking through the front door with money.”

Heather tilts her head. “Funny. Is that _not_ how we got here?” Her hand fists in the front of his shirt. “Ssh—I hear something.”

The bathroom door creaks open and they suck in their breaths, holding silent and still. There’s a shuffle of shoes and then the overheard fluorescents flicker out, cloaking them in darkness as soon as the door swings closed, taking with it the last corridor of spilled light that was creeping in from the outside.

“I think he’s gone,” Nathaniel whispers.

“I’m _so_ glad that worked, because if we got caught we probably would have had to make out as a cover up, and like, no offence, but you are not my type.”

“Excuse me?” Nathaniel scoffs, looking affronted as he awkwardly lowers himself back to the floor. “I’m a white ten. I’m everybody’s type.”

Heather shoots him a pitying look and pats him lightly on the chest before carefully pushing open the door. “I mean, that is not remotely true, but good on you for fighting your feelings of inadequacy by conflating privilege with personal worth, I guess.”

Once they’ve managed to creep into the cool blue glow of the underwater tunnel unspotted, they both relax somewhat and Heather fishes in her breast pocket for the joint.

Nathaniel raises his eyebrows. “It says no smoking,” he feels obligated to point out.

“It also says opening hours are over and done with,” Heather says. “But like, can’t win ‘em all.”

“Won’t we set off some smoke alarm, or something?”

She pats her pockets for a lighter. “Maybe. Probably not. Too late now. Quit being such a nerd, take a puff and like, chill out already.”

“Are you peer pressuring me right now?”

She squints at him. “Sure. If I remotely considered us peers, maybe you could call it that.”

He frowns. “I don’t think I’m that much older than you.”

“Yeah, because that’s what I meant. Anyway, let’s do what we came here to do, which is get baked and stare at some fish a whole bunch.” She tilts her head at him. “This is okay though, right? No one’s going to make you pee in a cup on Monday?”

“Besides the fact that I’m the senior partner? No. Lawyers don’t make other lawyers take drug tests,” he says wryly. “The perks of choosing a profession practically founded on coke habits.”

“Oh, yeah. This is probably all minor league for you, huh?”

Heather pulls the smoke into her mouth and holds it there before parting her lips to release a perfect smoke ring, and some part of Nathaniel’s brain thinks it’s the most badass thing he’s ever fucking seen.

She holds the cigarette out towards him and he swallows, contemplating how the hell he ended up here and why he still hasn’t turned back yet. 

He stifles a cough as he breathes it in.

*

It takes a little while to kick in, and when it does it happens slowly and then all at once.

The rippling of the water as the fish pass them idly by is hypnotic. He feels two steps removed from every debilitating thought that enters his head and there’s something freeing in the delay—like it’s already lost all of its hold on him by the time he catches up.

“So what is it about Rebecca that has every second dude in West Covina falling over themselves to get at her? Is there something in the water here? Or are you guys just biologically pre-programmed to seek out hot messes with which to distract yourselves from your own dysfunctional existences? Emphasis on the hot. Obviously.” Heather snickers at her own joke. “But that’s the real water conspiracy she should have been looking into, am I right?”

They’re sitting haphazard on the floor, he with his head tucked awkwardly into the gap between the handrails, tie tugged undone and Heather sunk lower and looser beside him, one arm slung over her stomach and chin resting on her chest. She rolls her eyes over to look at him, twisting the joint absently between her thumb and forefinger.

He tries to focus on the question and when he thinks of Rebecca his head fills briefly with colour and music and it hums through him like electricity until it stings.

“Is it like, a sex thing?” she prods, elbow wedging itself into his ribs. She shoots him a knowing look. “Home girl’s nasty, right?”

“Mm, nope. I am _not_ discussing my sex life with you. I barely know you.”

“I mean, I already know _way_ more about the two of you in the boudoir than either of us is comfortable with—Rebecca’s not exactly discreet. Or quiet. Or respectful of personal boundaries.”

He’s quiet for a moment at that—the loose threads in the cuff of his button down suddenly oddly transfixing. “She, uh… she talked about us?”

“I don’t know how she managed to not blab about the fact she was boning you for eight months, but once the cat was out of the bag, it was like, _all_ out of the bag. Did I ask for it to be let out? No. Did I try feign interest anyway out of the goodness of my heart? Also no. Gross. I don’t need to know what all this—” She gestures loosely to his frame. “—looks like outside of a suit. Unfortunately for me I’m an extremely visual person, so here we are.”

Feeling suddenly self-conscious, he tugs the loosened collar of his shirt closed and frowns.

“So I know why I’m supposedly spiralling,” Nathaniel says glibly. “But what happened to you being all laid-back and above it all, hmm? I thought you were out having babies for people you’re not dating and taking over the world.”

“Yeah. Being responsible wasn’t so fun anymore once I saw what it looked like on Rebecca,” she responds, tipping her head back and exhaling smoke. “Not that she was ever the shining beacon of a role-model, or anything. But she was kind of like a walking wake up call.” She glances at him sideways. “You know you don’t have a monopoly on missing her, asshole. You’re, like, barely a blip on the rich and nuanced tapestry of her West Covina breeze-through.”

He bristles at that, then reluctantly accepts the joint when she thrusts it at him.

“Rebecca’s kind of a shitty friend,” Heather says after awhile, turning away, so that he has to strain to hear. “But I’ve never really had that many girl friends before. She kind of forces herself on you, you know? Like she points at you, and decides that’s it, you’re her person, and you don’t get much of a say in the matter.”

“Yeah,” he says. “I understand what you mean.”

“Anyway. You might have, like, re-enacted the entire Kama Sutra with her once or twice, but I single-handedly baked a loaf of her bread in my oven, so. _That’s_ intimacy, bitch.”

“Well,” Nathaniel says with a smirk, the words floating out of him before he can stop himself. “Not the entire Kama Sutra.”

Heather turns to him like she’s going to say something disapproving but instead she just wrinkles her nose and laughs.

*

Nathaniel feels loose, too loose—like he’s floating away. Looseness isn’t a thing he allows himself. Looseness is the opposite of cool and collected and in control, and the sensation of being untethered makes him start to panic a little.

“Let’s go over there,” he suggests, pointing blindly as he pulls himself up, straightening in what feels like slow motion.

“I’m coming,” Heather says, then doesn’t move. “Oh. Did I not get up? I thought I was right behind you. But it was just, like, mentally, I guess.”

She tips into him as he helps her to her feet, her hands grasping briefly at his waist to right herself. She smells strongly of soap, and kind of earthy, and when her hair tickles his nose his brain short circuits on _rebecca rebecca rebecca._

“Do you…” The words feel soft and syrupy in his mouth—slow and stretched out, like taffy. He licks his lips and gestures at his head. “Shampoo.”

“Do I shampoo?” Heather repeats. Her voice drops to a dramatic whisper. “Dude, you are _so_ high right now.”

He scrunches his eyes shut and laughs. “Well, so are you.”

Heather squeezes his shoulders, _hard,_ and he pictures her fingers sinking through the gaps in his scapulae to rattle the bone _._ “You have _no idea.”_

They make their way a few metres down the walkway, to a window probably identical to the one they’d just been sitting across from but Nathaniel likes the energy of this one better—likes the way a school of mackerel hang suspended in the water in front of it before they flit and slide away when they notice him watching, and he contemplates how the act of being observed changes a thing like it’s the most profound thought he’s ever had.

He would’ve liked to bring Rebecca to the aquarium, he thinks. As much as she enjoyed teasing him she was for the most part interested in his interests, and it seemed like the perfect blend of fun-but-educational that could be entirely her flavour. He stares at the dull reflection of himself in the two-foot-thick glass and tries to picture her standing beside him.

A nurse shark sluices past in his periphery.

He thinks about how her mouth would’ve dropped open in that same mixture of surprise and delight she could barely contain at the masquerade as she dragged him along from placard to placard, insistent on reading every word. He would’ve bought her the otter—the pink one, lying on its back, with the clamshell and the paws. _Otters hold hands while they’re sleeping so they don’t float away,_ she would’ve told him in a hushed voice, hugging it to her chest, eyebrows knitting as she knotted her fingers through his and squeezed.

There’s a whole song and dance routine happening somewhere off to his left, a by-product of Rebecca being summoned up by his subconscious, no doubt. When he stares at her reflection too long it starts to feel wrong. Starts to feel like she isn’t being reflected at all, because she’s not actually beside him. Which means she has to be on the other side of the glass.

He remembers talking to her through the perspex, on the phone. He’d been angry, abrupt, but it feels so far away now. _No touching_ , it says on the glass, but it’s after hours, Heather said. They’re already breaking the rules.

He splays his palm across the window the way he couldn’t bring himself to when he hated her. 

She doesn’t do it back.

Mermaid-Rebecca follows them silently up the corridor, her translucent-pale skin blending seamlessly into the silver of a shark’s tail. She looks gaunt, cold and clammy and lifeless like the body he couldn’t stop picturing since Paula told him in hushed, clipped tones what happened to her on that plane. Her mouth is moving in some kind of whale song on a wavelength he can’t comprehend and she seems melancholy and sad, her espresso-soaked hair thick and brackish in the water; when she bites her lip at him the razor-edge serration of her tooth sinks into the skin and draws dark blood that drags out and dissipates around her.

“It’s like. What did sharks do to get their own week, you know? Where’s the celebratory programming block on sea stars, because I’m here for that. Whenever the world feels it’s ready.”

Heather turns back to look at him when he doesn’t respond, and he supposes what she sees isn’t particularly encouraging by the way she starts to roll her eyes then stops herself.

“Okay. You can _not_ wig out on me right now. I’m all for a solid buddy system—huh, bud,” she snorts, momentarily distracted, then re-composes herself. “But I’m not in a state of mind to be, like, spirit guiding you through a bad trip, so focus up, Atticus Finch.” She rests her hands heavily on his shoulders. “What, was that reference too high school for you? Because I read that book in detention instead of taking my English final.”

“No,” he says, straightening his shoulders. “It was a… surprisingly favourable comparison, that’s all.”

“Yeah, well. Don’t get used to it.”

He realises the music he’s been hearing isn’t coming from his head or Rebecca’s at all but the pocket of Heather’s cardigan where she’s stuffed her phone. It shifts into focus once he notices it, sounds less garbled and faraway. When Heather’s hands drop away and he twists to look back at the water, the mermaid is long gone.

He closes his eyes and each note thrums white-hot through his bloodstream.

He thinks about Rebecca—the real one, not the mermaid—a confusing cacophony of rules and obliterated boundaries that he has trouble making sense of at the best of times. About how she was her own kind of synesthesia—a tidal wave crashing constantly down over him and flooding all his streams with confusing new sensation. Things he’d never cared to let himself feel before. Things that would make his father’s lips curl back in disgust.

“I get it, you know. What she saw in you. You’re like the same, stupid smart person. Which makes sense. She’s kind of self involved.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says with a laugh, peeling open his eyelids only to scrunch up his face in confusion. “Rebecca and I could not be more different.”

_That’s part of what I like about you._

“Riiiight,” Heather drawls. “Except for the part where you’re, like, exactly the same.”

Nathaniel tries to feel irritated but he can’t summon it properly—it’s more like the shape of the space where annoyance should be. He scrubs a hand across his eyes.

“Okay. Let’s psychoanalyse you for a moment, hmm? Why are you here? And don’t say because of me—we’re not friends. You don’t owe me anything, and this entire night has been your idea. What, are you breaking the law so you can feel close to her? Blasting music instead of trying to be quiet because there’s some messed up part of you that wants to get caught?”

He’s mocking her, entirely facetious, but something about it apparently hits too close to home because Heather stiffens and draws her lips into a tight, thin line before pulling herself to her feet and stomping off down the tunnel away from him. His feet refuse to cooperate when he thinks about following her so instead he just stares after her dumbly, mouth hanging open and agape.

“Okay,” he calls, as sarcastically as he can muster. He gestures widely with his arms though he knows she can’t see him. “Fine. Walk away. I don’t need you either.”

He doesn’t need Rebecca, and he certainly doesn’t need her too-cool, wisecracking, starfish-owning friend passing judgment on his life. He has Josh for that, if he really wants it, and besides, he was getting along just fine in life before her. Before either of them, and before any of… _all this._

He presses the heels of his palms into the sockets of his eyes and groans.

Somewhere down the hallway, the music fizzles out and fades away.

*

It’s loud, without Heather. 

Not in the tunnel—it’s still eerily dim and quiet—but in his brain. Without Heather’s words to focus on and the earth wire of her long legs stretched out beside him he starts thinking again, which is precisely what he’s been trying to avoid all this time—being left too alone with his thoughts. He gets twitchy and tense, and feels like the stretch of water overhead is pressing down on him, suffocating him, swallowing him whole. Kind of like he’s drowning on dry land.

A small eternity passes where his lungs refuse to inflate before he starts to think that maybe she isn’t coming back.

He’s halfway towards what he thinks should be the exit, gulping down air, when he spots something down the path in the other direction. A window, a small one, with a light that’s tinged pinker than the others. The water shimmers with the colour of the streaks in Heather’s hair and at the bottom of the tank there’s a starfish, glowing golden, and with each step he takes towards it the light grows stronger, brighter, reeling him in. 

Ten paces out from the window a hand closes over his mouth and drags him backwards into an alcove instead. He expels a muffled grunt and twists to find Heather gesticulating up the passage just as the security guard rounds the corner. She releases him and they shrink back against the wall together.

“Just so you know,” Heather jokes, her tone falling flat, “turnabout is _not_ fair play. Tonight’s about making fun of your emotional pitfalls, not mine.”

He watches her for a moment as she stubbornly avoids his gaze. He tries his hardest not to smile as his blood pulses warm and pleasant in his ears. “Noted.”

Once the coast is clear she starts trudging back the way they came and he falls into step beside her, their shoulders bumping occasionally as they walk.

“You were right, I think. Kind of. Whatever. But it’s not just about Rebecca. Do you ever feel like you’re just… _too_ much of an adult? Like, one minute you’re getting wasted in parking lots and sleeping until noon each day and then suddenly you have a job and health insurance and an overly understanding boyfriend that looks after you while you have your roommate’s baby. And then suddenly they’re gone—both of them, the roommate and the baby.”

Nathaniel shrugs. He can’t relate, not really—he’s never been a stranger to responsibility, not with parents like his, and he’s certainly never carried someone’s baby. He gets the bit about Rebecca being gone, though. He just doesn’t think that part needs pointing out.

They come to a halt in the hallway. Heather blinks expectantly at him like she’s waiting for something and he combs through the cotton wool currently occupying his cranial cavity and comes up empty.

In all its infinite elegance, he settles on, “Huh?”

“I _said,_ are you hungry?”

He considers the question. His stomach feels too big, and nauseatingly empty; his tongue licks his lips, searches his mouth for traces of salt. He _is_ hungry, and he wants something that tastes like pretzels and tears and the metallic sting of his daddy's disappointment.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I could eat.”

*

They manage to slip out the emergency exit without setting off the alarm. 

He doubles back through the gift shop on the way.

*

Heather convinces the Uber driver to detour through a McDonalds drive-thru on the journey home, and he can’t get enough of the fries. 

He’s still diligently chomping through them—one disgustingly oily, salted stalk after another—and grasping the grease-spotted paper bag in one hand as Heather fumbles with her keys. Once she manages to get the key in the lock and turn she shoulders open the door and stumbles inside.

There’s a chirruping sound, and the grey fabric of Heather’s sweats lights up over her thigh. She glances around the lounge room, confused.

“Your left leg is ringing,” Nathaniel says, pointing helpfully in its direction.

“Oh hey, you’re right.” She scrambles to pick up. “Heyyy, baby. I just got home, where are you?”

Her voice trails off as she scuffs towards the kitchen and immediately buries herself in the fridge but he definitely hears the phrase _babysitting Rebecca’s on-again-off-again not-boyfriend_ and takes it as his cue to excuse himself to the bathroom.

He can’t help but eye the shampoo on the ledge while he’s in there.

He flushes and exits but his feet carry him the wrong way back to the kitchen and instead he finds himself standing in front of the door to Rebecca’s bedroom, rooting into the floorboards in the corridor and settling there until he loses the last of his admittedly already thin grasp of time.

“Oh,” Heather says quietly when she joins him in the aftermath of explaining to her currently-absent live-in boyfriend why she’s stoned with her ex-housemate’s ex-boss at two o’clock in the morning. “I’ve been trying to ignore where that goes.”

Grimacing, she swings open the door with a lot more nonchalance than he thinks she feels, the resulting gust of air that hits them in the face feeling too thick to inhale. Nathaniel stands beside her for a moment, shoulders slumped, before shuffling past her and pitching face forward onto the mattress with a despondent grunt. His left arm goes searching blindly down the side of the bed until it fists in the fluffy green fur of Rebecca’s stuffed alligator, dragging it up and beside him, hugged firmly against his side.

“Yeah,” Heather says, working her jaw a few times because the word feels weird. “Yeah. I could… lying down is fun.”

She spreads out across the free space next to him. Neither of them talk for a long while, just quietly coming down, until words start gathering together in Nathaniel’s chest like a frenzied cloud of yellowfin, swarming and pressing down on his sternum like lead weights until he can’t take it anymore—he has to start forcing them out.

“You’re an idiot,” Heather announces, then holds out her hand. “And that’ll be two hundred dollars for my expert assessment.”

He imagines himself reaching for his wallet and placing his platinum credit card in her palm because some still-possessed part of him thinks it’s funny. He huffs out a laugh but his hand, sluggish and heavy, stays where it is.

“Of course she was into you, you moron. While you were off posing for the paparazzi like you landed some Instagram sponsorship deal with Barbie doll Rebecca, the real Rebecca was shooting up just, like, all the hormones in my kitchen and crying about it. And I don’t really do tears, so. It was kind of awkward.”

“What? ‘Barbie doll’ Rebecca?” He squints at her. “You’re talking about Mona?”

“Oh, was that her name? Because Rebecca kind of had other ways of referring to her. Anyway, you might get a pass for sticking around when all that crazy stuff about Robert came out, but like, up until the courthouse, her breaking up with you was one of the most weirdly self-aware things she’s done. Which is not to say it wasn’t misguided, because, you know—now she’s in jail, so. Not ideal.” She twists one of her curls around her finger. “But you were kind of a massive dick to her when she told you she wasn’t ready, which wasn’t cool, like, at all. And you could have waited. I get that rebounds are a thing, but you went kind of overboard. You can like, fuck the bad feelings away and move on. You don’t have to marry them.”

He can feel himself pouting, and tries to regain control of the muscles in his face. “You don't understand.”

“No, I think I do. Your fragile masculine pride was wounded when you got dumped and you lashed out by firing the employee you probably should not have been sleeping with in the first place, and then you rebounded with the epitome of what you think you shouldwant versus what you actually want. Which all blew up in your face when Rebecca’s ongoing lack of impulse control collided with your questionable moral fortitude.”

He frowns, still not entirely used to Heather’s unique brand of honesty. He’s lived a lifetime of disparaging commentary from his dad—and it’s not like Plimpton Senior doesn't know how to be scathing, he definitely does—but Heather’s never been one to be tempered by facade. She just tells it like it is.

“It’s like… Rebecca gave me this fish tank. But then she left, and she took all the water with her. And I was left with this empty glass box, and I felt like I had to… put something in it.”

Heather stares at him. “Wow. You’re, like, really good at metaphors.”

“I’ve never really thought about… feelings, that much until her. And being happy.”

It’s true. Happiness had always seemed like some kind of abstract concept to him; a gross exaggeration, some kind of idyllic myth people told themselves to feel better. His life had for so long been about goals and achieving them that it had been easy to equate _happy_ with _going after something you want and getting it._ Until the thing that he’d wanted had been Rebecca, and getting her had opened up a whole entire universe of wanting he’d never considered before—things like lazy mornings lingering in bed, and shared meals, and someone always wondering where you are and what you’re doing.

“I mean, just because Rebecca vomits _out_ a lot of emotions, _doesn’t_ mean she’s all, like, in touch with them. She’s pretty much the personification of a huge ass Egyptian river. And you do realise her fixation on the elusive concept of happiness is part of her problem, right? Happy isn’t a level in some video game that you unlock and then you’re all set for life, or whatever.”

He knows she’s right. But he also knows that for two, three incredible weeks he’d felt like he was floating, and when Rebecca rescinded whatever semblance of a relationship they’d been entertaining, it was like someone had wrapped their hand around his heart and squeezed.

“When she got arrested I told her that I… you know.” When Heather raises her eyebrows higher up her forehead than she has any right to he sighs and elaborates, “You know. The L word.”

She scrunches up her face. “‘The L word’? What are you, five? Gross. Also? Congratulations—you and, like, half the male population of this town. And probably a couple of females, too. Because, you know. There’s a bit of a vibe.”

He shakes his head and the room moves back and forth around him. “I told her and she said it back. Kind of. In not so many words. It was more like a mutual understanding of…”

“L words?” Heather quips.

“Yes. We agreed on that, and we had a plan. And then she just… did her own thing, like she always does.”

“You know,” she says, tilting her head and observing him with unnerving detachment, “you’re kind of monumentally dumb for a lawyer. But good on you for sticking to your guns, I guess.”

“You are… kind of mean.”

“Well. You’re… just, like, a giant mess. And you’re not exactly the poster boy for being a decent human being yourself, so.”

She has a point.

“Rebecca made me feel like I could be… different. Better.”

He thinks back to the dinner they'd had that night after the incident at the donut shop, when he’d told her as much; to when she’d sat across from him, frantic and despondent, pleading with him not to break up with her only to turn around and dump him the next day instead. Remembers the way she’d climbed into his lap and kissed him, giddy with relief, and wishes he’d only known it then it’d be the last time he’d have her beside him in his bed. He would’ve gone slower, maybe. Lingered longer with her in the morning when she begged.

When he sighs and twists onto his side the room starts rushing towards him like he’s stumbled into oncoming traffic, and he sucks in a breath and settles onto his back. It’s instantly better—Rebecca’s bedroom slows down to a gentle, soothing roll once it senses he’s not fighting it, and he lets himself be pulled along on the current.

Something is digging into the flesh of his thigh and he fumbles into his pocket, fingers wrapping around the toy he’d shoved hastily into it earlier. It’s an otter; not the fluffy pink one with the clamshell but a tiny brown one, about the size of a plum. He squeezes its sides and it claps its felted black hands together obligingly.

“Rebecca can’t make you a better person,” someone says, and he absently remembers Heather is still beside him and registers that she’s talking. “She’s having a hard enough time grappling with her own conscience. Like, she’s literally put herself in jail as some kind of misguided penance for her multitude of, like… wrong.” She yawns, then frowns. “Wrongs. Wrongdoings. Whatever. You—you can’t coast through life like she’s the only person worth trying to impress. It’s fine if she was your initial flicker of inspiration in your corporate grayscale existence, but don’t, like, hinge all your character development on a muse. The lightbulb has to want to change, and all that.”

“Rebecca’s a lightbulb,” he mumbles, eyes fluttering shut, because something about that makes perfect sense.

“I mean, sometimes,” Heather shrugs. “I’m not sure that was the important takeaway there, but yeah.”

His index finger starts to feel like static where the otter is squeezing it between its paws.

Heather fiddles with her phone for a moment and puts some kind of sultry mood music on and he pictures himself playing the piano like he used to as a child. He hasn’t touched one in years, decades even; his tingling fingers are drawn to the keys like magnets, though, and he’s Frank Sinatra, he’s a jazz pianist, he’s goddamn _Casablanca,_ lamenting the loss of his lady love in marvellous monochrome. The song’s called _Blue Mermaid_ , whatever that means, and Rebecca’s there even though she’s not, spotlighted on the stage in her cobalt, fishtailed gown—the only source of colour, startling in its saturation—and when she opens her mouth to sing along no words come out, just like at the aquarium. She’s still just a ghost he can’t hear anymore—a siren stuck in a room without a voice, the seductive songstress in his silent movie.

The tuba is a nice accompaniment until it hits a sour note and crashes, the performance grinding to a cacophonous halt.

“Sorry,” Heather says with an unapologetic shrug, toying with her vintage pearls. “I only took it for two months in sophomore year before I quit.”

He starts playing scales on the piano and it’s all wrong—he hasn’t been practicing as much as he should have because the weather has been nice, he has a term paper due, there’s college to think of and there’s no time for something as frivolous as _music_ , Nathaniel, and his fingers are swollen and dislocated from when the captain of the opposing team stomped on them at that party last weekend and it’s all so faraway he couldn't reach the keys if he tried. 

The spotlight goes out, and Rebecca is gone.

He can’t do anything but play her off with his silence.

“Were you, like, a child prodigy, or something? A five year old virtuoso?” 

He blinks and the colours aren’t so washed out anymore. The pink of Heather’s hair is electric on the pillow between them, and he reaches up and places the otter on Rebecca’s bedside table, next to some kind of lime green dog… thing.

“No,” he says, and shakes his head. “No, I was… average. The reason it wasn’t worth pursuing.”

“But, what? It was your childhood dream, crushed by the weight of your father’s judgment?”

He considers that. Rolls the idea of it around in his mind like putty and collecting dust mite-sized flecks of thoughts along the way. “No, I… I’m pretty sure I hated it, actually. I was relieved when I got to quit.”

“Quitting is fun,” she agrees.

Heather hooks one of her legs over his companionably and he has to stop himself from looking to her in confusion. Instead he plays it cool, doesn't react, doesn’t let on to how utterly out of his depth he is when it comes to platonic physical displays of affection. Heather’s calf is warm against his, even through his slacks, and it’s oddly, casually, confusingly intimate.

She drops her phone on her face, grunts, then picks it up again, nudging him with her leg.

“Do you have Facebook? Add me back, I want to tag you in something. In the interest of personal growth.”

“I’m not adding you on Facebook.”

“Why not? Do you have a bunch of embarrassing photos on there from college, or something? Just give me your phone, I’ll do it myself.”

Evidently her reflexes are working better than his, because she’s got it out of his pocket and unlocked before his fingers can even twitch.

He knows exactly what she’s going to see when she opens the app—arguably the catalyst for this whole ridiculous night in the first place—and he darts his eyes away from her in chagrin.

“Okay, well, sad,” she says, flashing the album of Rebecca’s profile pictures at him after staring at it for a moment. “That wanky family crest of a profile picture, your middle initial and all those Roman numerals at the end of your name—sad: the sequel. But on the upside, hey—we’re Facebook official now. Congrats. Do you want me to change your relationship status while I’m here? Because I think your girlfriend deleted you.”

He snatches the phone back and stuffs it in his other pocket, out of reach.

“Alright. Cool. Well, you rip that bandaid off when you’re ready. I’m gonna start sending you Candy Crush requests and tagging you in memes to cement our budding friendship.”

“Just because you hijacked my phone, doesn’t mean we’re friends.”

“Hey, maybe you missed it in between all the undignified giggling you were doing, but you and I totally had a soul-baring moment back there. We’re bonded for life now. Like a badass pair of Angelfish.”

He fixes her with a Look. “Please. I don’t giggle.”

“You were definitely giggling. And I have a solid focus group of the Pacific Ocean as my witness.”

He considers further refuting her claims but finds he can only yawn in response.

“Mm, seconded. Sleep times now.” Heather stretches, flinging an arm across him and narrowly avoiding hitting him in the face. “FYI, if you start crashing here on the regular again, I’m charging you rent. And for therapy. Which you definitely need—so, you’re welcome, but also? Look into that. Like, professionally.” She pats him encouragingly on the shoulder, then makes an attempt to roll out of the bed. “Ugh. Moving is hard.”

“Wait—don’t go,” he says before he can stop himself. He doesn’t want to be left alone in Rebecca’s room just as surely as he’s incapable of dragging himself out of it. His voice tastes too dry in his mouth. “Buddy system, remember?”

“Yeah, okay. Maybe for a little while. But for the record I have a boyfriend,” she says. She flops back down. “And you have an incarcerated hang-up that you’re still going strong on carrying a torch for, so. Don’t go getting any fresh ideas.”

“In your dreams,” Nathaniel scoffs.

Heather reaches out and grabs his hand like it’s nothing and he considers being startled by it but the impulse takes too long meandering down from his brain so he just lies there instead, breathing and going blank.

He sinks into the best night’s sleep he’s had in weeks.

*

When he wakes he’s alone in Rebecca’s bed, bar the stuffed alligator dutifully playing little spoon against his chest. 

It’s a strange sense of deja vu, stirring to the light streaming in through the curtains and the green pile tickling his nose but it’s an improvement, at least, to be awoken by the seductive smell of coffee rather than the insistent rapping of removalists on the side door.

He checks his phone with bleary eyes and his thumb hovers over the Facebook badge on autopilot, ready to engage in his morning routine of mindlessly refreshing Rebecca’s profile page until he realises he has three new notifications waiting for him.

The first is a Candy Crush request—Heather is nothing if not a woman of her word, he supposes. The next two are tags, and his eyes flutter shut in a pre-emptive cringe.

Beneath them all, from late last night: _You and Heather Davis became friends._

He clicks on the first tagged post. It’s one of those images that’s supposed to be sweeping and inspirational, he assumes, with an elegant, artistically arranged font. _Women are not rehabilitation centres for badly raised men._

_@Nathaniel J. Plimpton III i believe in u, atticus. dont disappoint me._

He rolls his eyes as he hits the back button, but there’s a confusing undercurrent of fondness that accompanies it he’d rather not closely examine.

The second image is far more visually offensive than the first, with less tasteful design. It’s a pixelated still from what he thinks he recognises as _The Hangover,_ emblazoned with _tag someone that was with you for a night you’ll never forget._ Next to where she’s typed his name, Heather’s accented with emojis of a star and a tropical fish.

“Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty,” the woman in question calls through the door as if on cue, the sharp staccato of her fist against the wood making him flinch. “Your free trial period is over. All further moping will be charged by the minute. I’ve got caffeine and carbs and all blatant lies about not being hungry will be steadfastly ignored.”

The rumbling of his stomach betrays him. 

He only hesitates a few seconds before hitting the like button.


End file.
